Toward understanding conservation behavior in agriculture as a dynamic and mutually responsive process between individuals and the social system

Excerpt

Since the Green Revolution, farming has transitioned globally into high-yield crop varieties characterized by an intensive use of natural resources. While this has been successful in increasing productivity and lowering the cost of food (Evenson 2003), it has put pressure on ecosystem sustainability, ecological biodiversity, and the provision of ecosystem services (Garibaldi et al. 2017; Tilman et al. 2002). Clearly, this has not gone unnoticed by key actors like research institutes, extension organizations, and policy makers that work to support sustainable farming practices. As a result, examples abound of research and extension programs that aim to make farming sustainable by means of promoting conservation agriculture (CA), with the goals of safeguarding farmers' economic viability and restoring balance in demands made on valuable and limited resources. Such efforts have been met with variable degrees of success (Garibaldi et al. 2017; Tilman et al. 2002; Wezel et al. 2014) and have created a large body of literature dedicated to understanding what drives the adoption of CA practices and technologies (Brown et al. 2017; Chouinard et al. 2016; Kassie et al. 2013; Llewellyn et al. 2017; Mills et al. 2017; Pannell et al. 2006; Reimer et al. 2014). Although these studies converge in…